Political Ideology: A Meta-Analysis

Political opinions are often cornerstones of a person’s identity. They develop relatively early in life and remain relatively constant throughout. Most people do not fluctuate on their political opinions. As political stances are such a strong part of a person’s identity, it would be assumed that they do not change based on situation or environment. However, new research shows how social situations can impact a person’s opinions and expression of political ideology. In this study, my goals were to find how a specific subsection of partisans, called leaning partisans, can be influenced by social settings. The American political system is a two party system made up of the Democrats and the Republicans. Although this is an oversimplification,

By using meta-analysis, Jost and colleagues (2003) combined the results of dozens other studies across the globe with 88 samples and more than 20,000 participants to correlate traits to political ideologies. Through this large undertaking, the researchers were able to identify many traits that correlated with conservatives and liberals. Traits like fear of ambiguity, rule following and uncertainty avoidance are all correlated with conservatism. Additionally, conservative ideological beliefs is correlated with a need for closure, structure, and order. On opposite end of the spectrum, liberalism was correlated with openness to experience, integrative complexity, and uncertainty tolerance. These traits are all important influencers in how people act in social situations and how they are influenced by others. When looking at how partisans conform, these traits may play a key part in explaining the actions and behaviors of partisans in situations. A trait such as openness to experience may influence how open people are to others and willing to accept answers that are different from their own. These traits are important in understanding key differences between conservatives and liberals that can lead to behavioral

Throughout many studies, it has been found that conservatives not only value social norms, but follow them more strictly than liberals (Gerber, Huber, Doherty, & Dowling, 2011, as cited in Panagopoulos & van der Linden, 2016). In one study, researchers attempted to find whether conservatives conform or obey more than liberals (Jost, Nosek & Gosling, 2008). Jost, Nosek and Gosling (2008) used meta-analysis from five different studies to associate values with political orientation. They found that conservatives conform more often and value tradition. Additionally, conservatives value obedience and order, which is important because these values may be important steps in a person’s likeness to conform. Not only do conservatives value and obey conformity different, when in research settings, conservatives conform differently. In a study by Costas Panagopoulos and Sander van der Linden (2016), conservatives reacted differently in social settings. They used implicit cues to influence people. Conservatives were consistently more susceptible and followed the perceived norms. This is important because differences between liberals and conservatives lead them to act